One day you'll die and that'l be it!

Sometimes I get really really depressed about the smallest and silliest things that I know in my head really aren't all that bad or tragic or anything like that but it just happens you know like yesterday at work an old lady came in on her own which isn't unusual or particularly sad but she went up to the counter and was asking like 'That pasta salad...can I have it in a small, small bowl? Like not too much. A small bowl. And do you do...like milkshakes? Can I have like a very small one, like a half one? Or a kid's one..." and I just wanted to be like look lady you're old now you can literally do whatever you want just order whole servings of things because it doesn't matter and you clearly want to anyway but I just took her order and assured her that if she didn't want to eat the ~whole thing~ then I could put it in a takeaway container for her and she could take it home so she sat by herself and picked at the food and sure enough she brought half of it back to me and asked to take it home and I just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake you know and the other night I was thinking about how the oldest woman who ever lived lived to be 122 years old or something and she smoked every day from when she was 21 to when she was 117 and she met Van Gogh when she was 12 and said that he was very rude and sick and last night I was talking to Anna about how when we're really old we're going to really ~live~ but then I started thinking about how I don't want to spend my life until then downloading the update of MyFitnessPal and asking for things in kids serves and taking half of the same old salad shit home in a little plastic container for later how boring!!!

I feel as though a weight is lifted from my shoulders when I remind myself that my worth lies inside of me and isn't a part of my actual body.

In other news here is an article that I wrote about Kanye West and how he portrays his relationship with women for my friends' latest endeavour, Grassroots Resistance. 

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Is Kanye West a closeted feminist?

Anyone’s first reaction would surely be no. As a black hip-hop artist, he slips into the easy stereotype of women-hating, sex- and money-crazed, violent and foul-mouthed man-child. Kanye ‘Imma let you finish’ West has produced videos for songs such as Monster, from 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which features sexualized images of mutilated dead bodies of white women, and savage, demonic images of black women. With lyrics such as ‘have you ever asked your bitch for other bitches?’ from his latest single Bound II, and footage of a naked Kim Kardashian looking sultry facing a fully-clothed Kanye as they ride a motorcycle together in a pastel sunset wonderland, Kanye West isn’t exactly a standout candidate for the title of feminist of the year.

However, as a woman who is certainly made uncomfortable by the above themes, I do not actually believe that West is a capital-M Misogynist. To be honest, I don’t think even he really knows how he feels about the ladies.

I have been listening to his latest album Yeezus in my car for about two weeks now. As you’d expect I know many of the lyrics by heart, and as each word burns itself into my brain (probably in the place of something much more important), I could not help but wonder about Kanye’s true feelings towards women.

Upon first listen, of course, the most obnoxious and shocking lines always present themselves at the forefront: ‘I wanna fuck you hard on the sink,’ ‘One more hit and I can own ya/One more fuck and I can own ya,’ ‘When a real n*gga hold you down, you supposed to drown.’  These words aren’t exactly pro-female in nature, and I think a lot of people would be turned off by these first impressions of Kanye. This is inevitable and understandable but please, if you haven’t listened to the whole album at least twice through, you should. It’s worth it.

Where Kanye West differs from the majority of the hip-hop world is that he appears to be so far in that particular world, he’s actually standing outside of it, and making comments on its peculiarities. Sure, he’s obnoxious, but I feel that his obnoxiousness is borne from insecurity, incredible anger, and desperate confusion. This seems to be quite clear in his song New Slaves: ‘Ya’ll throwing contracts at me/you know that n*ggas can’t read!’ While not directly related to women I feel as though this line in particular articulates a terrifying truth, delivered with perfect sarcasm and efficiency to highlight West’s position as an outsider and as a commentator, not a participator, in this fucked up world.

As for his relationship with females, there seems to be much confusion on Kanye’s part. What I like and appreciate about Kanye is his honesty. He has no idea what he’s doing with the women in his life (‘and I know, with the hoes I got the worst rep,’ (um maybe your rep would be better if you didn’t call them ‘hoes’?)) and he admits it, again and again, in album after album.

It’s complicated. He wants women, enjoys sex, but constantly makes mistakes even when he finds that one good girl who’s ‘worth a thousand bitches’. In Hold My Liquor he laments: ‘I’m hanging on a hangover/five years we been over/ask me why I came over.’ After five years, he still visits his ex-girlfriend because he can’t get over her? Doesn’t really sound like typical hiphop misogynistic behavior to me. The genius in Kanye lies in his ability to confess this terrible aching love for a woman, then in the next breath label her a bitch or a hoe or whatever else – therein lies the tragedy!

The Kanye West depicted in these songs is the most hopeless of cases. If you love a woman, you do not call her a bitch or any other derogatory term. Kanye has failed to learn this and is therefore destined to an empty and loveless existence. In answer to the question ‘is Kanye West a closeted feminist?’ I would have to say that the answer is still no. But it’s not a straight no; there are ifs and buts, because where do you file a man who actively seeks a woman to fall in love with, yet has no concept of how to treat women with respect? Is it his fault? Society’s fault? His mother’s, father’s, brother’s, sister’s? Or is it a devastating cocktail of them all?

Kanye West is an interesting caricature; a portrait of society exaggerated, shocking, mutant, but terrifyingly accurate. Where do women stand in Kanye’s world?

I’m still not really sure.